TODAY’S DEVOTION (Wednesday 19TH January 2022)
“The righteous cry out, and the Lord hears, and delivers them out of all their troubles. The Lord is near to those who have a broken heart, and saves such as have a contrite spirit.” Psalm 34:17-18 NKJV
WELCOME TO THE 19TH DAY OF OUR YEAR OF AMAZING GRACE
This is another day the LORD has made, we shall rejoice and be glad in it. He has enabled us to see 19 days of this year. To Him belong the glory. We do not just owe Him thanks but a life that is governed by His Spirit and fear.
He has graciously helped us to successfully cover the 19 days in peace, health, joy, and all that Heaven has to offer. Being grateful for the small things God may have done will prepare and qualify us for the big things He will do.
Yes, it may look small but it is not small at all.
It has been 19 days of no tears, no defeat, and no successful attack of the enemy. It’s been 19 days of waking up each morning in the arms of a loving God and power of the most gracious Spirit on earth – the Holy Spirit.
It’s been 19 days of enjoying and experiencing His comfort, encouragement, strengthening, covering, revelation and momentum.
I believe that whatever the LORD has done in our lives these 19 days is a shadow of what He will do in our lives in the next 346 days of this year that we are yet to see.
My confidence is rooted in the scripture that says the path of the just is like a shining light, that shines brighter and brighter unto a perfect day!
Today we will be refreshing our minds on matters of effective prayer. Apart from 2022 being a year we must go through looking at the word, it is also a year to go through on your prayer knee. So this piece of truth will be very helpful to us this morning, if we give it the attention it deserves.
To start with, I want to ask; Have you ever prayed a prayer earnestly and an answer refused to come? Do you have any issue in your life right now that you are trying to tackle in prayers even engaging anointed men and women to join you and yet things seem the same?
Answer to prayers this end time will not be dependent on a number of things that seem to have worked previously; namely, asking for prayers recklessly, going on unbiblical lengthy fasting, engaging in all night worry induced prayers, sacrificial financial giving on the contemporary Altars of Baal, and all other things people do or are told to do by so called ‘prophets.’
IT IS IMPORTANT TO UNDERSTAND THE SEASON LIKE THE SONS OF ISSACHAR AND KNOW WHAT ISRAEL OUGHT TO DO.
God made it clear that answers to prayer this end time will be based strictly on righteousness because the sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination in the sight of God (Proverbs 15:8). Our devotional text said the righteous cry out and the LORD hears and delivers them out of their trouble.
The word did not say “the wicked cry out and the LORD hears and delivers them.” The word says “the righteous cry out.” The Bible made it clear that God is angry with the wicked everyday (Psalm 7:11).
Sadly, most of us preachers do not tell the wicked this truth. Most preachers will look at the wicked and tell them “God is not mad at you.” But the Bible says He is mad at the wicked. That is why He only hears the prayer of the righteous. Wickedness has never been celebrated or tolerated in God’s kingdom. Sometimes I wonder whose interest we preachers represent making such statements.
If you are looking for the strongest key to answered prayers, consider Righteousness first. It stands taller and stronger than any other key. It is the strongest key to answered prayers. It gives efficacy and strength to our prayers. It makes our prayers rise to God as a sweet-smelling savor that when God smells He speak irrevocable blessings upon our lives.
Yes, it causes the presence of God to break forth among us like a breakthrough of water. It makes prayers the most fearful weapon of war in the realm of the Spirit. That is why Satan may never stop you from praying if there is no righteousness in your life. It is the Righteous he will cloth with laziness not to pray because he knows what will happen if they do.
I have seen the devil giving the wicked prayers points by the hands of misled preachers, and oiling their prayer lives. I have seen unsaved people engaged in days of prayer and fasting to get married, get a job, kill their enemies and all that; led by prophets and prophetess who are not filled with the Holy Spirit.
THAT IS THE DEVIL POWERING THE PRAYER LIVES OF THE WICKED BECAUSE HE KNOWS THAT THEIR PRAYERS ARE AN ABOMINATION TO THE LORD
If your prayer will be an abomination to the LORD, Satan will use money making preachers to power it. He will use them to make you pray and fast every week, month or year to have this need or that need met. You will be doing many all nights-prayers to have your worries met.
But when he knows you are a righteous seed whose prayers will touch Heaven to change earth, he will make sure you can’t pray for a second. It is the prayers of the righteous he fights to stop not that of the wicked.
Righteousness has been simply defined as “right standing with God!” The righteous is therefore one who is in right standing with God in everything he may be doing. If you are therefore praying or fasting while you are not in right standing with God, whatever you may be doing is an abomination in His sight.
Only a prayer of repentance and getting back to God will get Heaven’s attention. It is very important that our generation understand these Bible truths because a lot of bad preaching have buried them.
We must understand that If we are living in sin and engaging in any type of prayer, our prayers will be an abomination in God’s sight because we are not in right standing with Him. If you are in a pseudo marriage and are praying that things be well in that marriage, our prayers will be an abomination to God because we are not in right standing with Him in marriage matters.
I have said it over and over that what God has not joined together even prayer cannot keep together. Prayer cannot bring God to establish or prosper what is not in His will and plan. But many have been made to believe the opposite hence spending all their lives praying for things God will never permanently do.
At most He will grant them little relieve but will never grant them a permanent rest because they are not in his will for their lives.
I have seen women who went for prayers to bring calm to their trouble marriages celebrating the relief they got through prayers but never got a permanent rest in their marriage.
GOD DID NOT CREATE MARRIAGE TO BE CHARACTERIZED WITH ONE WEEK ONE TROUBLE SCENARIO.
Sadly, many have been made to think otherwise by even preachers. They make them think marriage is sustained by prayer, so they should keep praying to have peace.
Friend, only a marriage that is not in God’s will or ways will need regular prayer to be sustained because God cannot bring a permanent rest to it, since the ways of those involved are not right before Him. Marriages of people whose ways are right before God are sustained by the Presence of God, prayer or no prayer. That is why before you get married, make sure your ways are right before GOD.
The wicked are people whose ways are not right before GOD. Their prayers is an abomination in God’s sight. You must understand that none whose life is not right before God can pray effective fervent prayers that makes tremendous power from God available.
If you see someone whose life is not right before God doing that, just know that either the demon of deliverance is at work or God is just being merciful.
If you are a rebellious type who do not care about what God thinks or says in His word, your prayers will always be an abomination to Him! The Bible says,
“He that turneth away his ear from hearing the law, even his prayer shall be abomination.” (Proverbs 28:9 KJV).
Like I stated earlier, the only prayer God hear from the wicked is the prayer of repentance. The reason is simple; genuine repentance is the only key that puts us in right standing with God. It comes after we encounter the revealed and living truth of GOD’S word.
You must first lift up your voice to repent of all wicked and get back to a life of right standing with God on your prayer knee, before lifting up your voice to God to pray any other type or form of prayers.
IT IS DANGEROUS TO ASSUME THAT YOU ARE ALREADY RIGHTEOUS WHILE LIVING IN WICKEDNESS.
I have seen sexual immoralist saying they are the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus. I have seen liars and thieves confessing that they are the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus – I mean practicing terrible sinners not ex-sinners.
It is a mockery of Salvation to be living wicked lives and confessing that we are the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus. Repentance is the only force that gets the ears of God stuck to the prayer of a sinner not such mockeries. It is only one who has brought his wicked and sinful life on the threshing floor of repentance that God hears their prayers.
Now, getting to the threshing of repentance requires genuinely repenting from sins, not just regretting. Most of us call regret repentance. God cannot be mocked my friend.
Genuine repentance involves four basic things. The first is ADMITTING our sins, the second is CONFESSING our sins to the right ears, the third is HATING our sin, and the fourth is TURNING AWAY from our sins by living a new life.
In other words, genuine repentance involved, ADMITTING, CONFESSING, HATING, and TURNING AWAY. Any repentance that lacks these four ingredients is not approved in God’s sight and will never make your prayer acceptable to Him.
Repentance is the only force that can erase the consequences of sins and makes prayers acceptable. It brings us in right standing with God. It is the first step we take towards synchronizing with God’s will and ways. If we do not spend our days in the threshing floor of repentance before asking God to do this or that in our lives, we will be spending our days in prayers that Heaven will never act on.
It is life on the threshing floor of repentance that helps us to pray prayers with a life that lines up with God’s will; because until we pray with a life that lines up with God’s will, our prayers can not be according to God’s will. And if our prayers are not said according to God’s will, He will not hear us.
May this day be a blessing in your life even as God use these devotional truths to align you for effective and result oriented prayers!
MAKE THIS SCRIPTURE AN ADDITIONAL MEDIATION FOR THE DAY!
“Now this is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us, whatever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we have asked of Him.” 1 John 5:14-15 NKJV